We are better than this : how government should spend our money

Resource Information

The work We are better than this : how government should spend our money represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri-St. Louis Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

We are better than this : how government should spend our money

Title remainder

how government should spend our money

Statement of responsibility

Edward D. Kleinbard

Creator

• Kleinbard, Edward D

Author

• Kleinbard, Edward D

Subject

• Finance, Public -- United States
• Fiscal policy -- United States
• BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Government & Business
• POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Economic Policy
• United States -- Appropriations and expenditures
• Government spending policy -- United States
• BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Taxation / General

Language

eng

Summary

• "We Are Better Than This fundamentally reframes budget debates in the United States. Author Edward D. Kleinbard explains how the public's preoccupation with tax policy alone has obscured any understanding of government's ability to complement the private sector through investment and insurance programs that enhance the general welfare and prosperity of our society at large. He argues that when we choose how government should spend and tax, we open a window into our "fiscal soul," because those choices are the means by which we express the values we cherish and the regard in which we hold our fellow citizens. Though these values are being diminished by short-sighted decisions to starve government, strategic government spending can directly make citizens happier, healthier, and even wealthier. Expertly combining the latest economic research with his insider knowledge of the budget process into a simple yet compelling narrative, he unmasks the tax mythologies and false arguments that too often dominate contemporary discourse about budget policies. Large quantities of comparative data are succinctly distilled to situate the United States among its peer countries, so that readers can judge for themselves whether contemporary budget choices really reflect our aspirational fiscal soul. Kleinbard's presentation takes a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on economics, finance, law, political science and moral philosophy. He uniquely weaves economic research and moral philosophy together by emphasizing our welfare, not just our national income, and by contrasting the actual beliefs of Adam Smith, a great moral philosopher, with the cartoon version of the man presented by proponents of the most extreme forms of private market triumphalism"--
• "A book which examines how government - which is to say, all of us, acting collectively - can make our country healthier, wealthier and happier, if we put government to useful work in those areas where it most productively complements our private markets"--

Assigning source

• Provided by publisher
• Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

336.3/90973

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

HJ257.2

LC item number

.K595 2015

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography